How to Get Your Next Coaching Client

Your next coaching client is closer than you think. I know that might sound bold, especially if you’ve been stuck in your head, staring at a blank screen, wondering what to post, say, or launch. But I’ve been there. I started my coaching business with no website, no social following, and no clue how digital marketing even worked.

What I did have was a dream. I had a desire to make a difference. And I had just enough courage to try something most new coaches completely overlook.

I started talking to people.

That’s it. That’s the strategy. And in this blog, I’m going to walk you through what I did, what I learned, and how you can use this simple approach to get your next client, even if you’re starting from scratch.

Overthinking Is the Real Block

When I was starting out, I was drowning in advice. Books, webinars, courses, social posts, podcasts. Everyone had a method. Everyone had a list of what I “should” do. I had 500 ideas and zero clarity.

Sound familiar?

This kind of overwhelm keeps so many coaches stuck in motion but not in momentum. You might be working hard, but it’s not moving the needle.

The truth is, the only thing that creates a coaching business is clients. Not followers, not logos, not content calendars. Clients. And the way you get clients is through connection.

You Don’t “Get” Clients, You Spark Conversations

You’re not out there hunting for people. You're not chasing leads or trying to convince anyone of anything. That’s not what we’re doing here. We’re building relationships. We’re creating real, meaningful conversations that lead to transformation.

I call this sparking.

Sparking is when you reach out with genuine curiosity and care. It’s not a script or a tactic. It’s you, showing up for someone you already know or someone you’re connected to through a friend, and asking how they’re doing.

When I first did this, I went through my phone, Gmail, and LinkedIn and found eight people I knew I could trust. I reached out to each one personally. No mass emails. Just, “Hey, how are you doing? I’m starting my coaching business and I’d love to offer you a complimentary session.”

All eight said yes.

Was I nervous? Completely. Did I overthink every word? Absolutely. But those conversations led to real sessions, which led to referrals, which led to my first few paying clients.

Social Skills Build Coaching Businesses

The skill you really need at the beginning isn’t marketing. It’s social skills. It’s your ability to connect, hold a conversation, listen deeply, and offer value.

And listen, I’m incredibly introverted. This was not easy for me. But it was learnable. And honestly, it was far more effective than any ad or sales page would have been at that stage.

The connection you build in a one-on-one conversation is powerful. It’s personal. It builds trust faster than any funnel can.

You don’t need hundreds of people. You need a few meaningful conversations that lead to opportunities to coach, help, and serve.

People Want to Help You

One of the most surprising lessons I learned was that people actually want to support new coaches. When you’re just starting, people see you as the underdog and they want to see you win.

It wasn’t until I became more visibly successful that people became more skeptical about referring or working with me. But in the early days, support came easily. All I had to do was ask.

You have more support around you than you realize. You just have to activate it.

What If You Already Asked Everyone You Know?

Some coaches tell me, “I already asked my friends and family. Now what?” And I get that. I’ve been there too.

The good news is, the approach doesn’t change. You still spark conversations. But now you do it more intentionally. You ask for introductions. You go to networking events. You connect with other coaches or entrepreneurs and look for ways to collaborate.

You focus on value and relationships, not visibility and performance.

Remember, it’s not about hustling harder on social media. It’s about letting people know who you are, what you do, and how you can help, and doing it in a way that feels good.

The Trap of False Empowerment

One thing to watch out for is trying to prove your worth in a single free session. I call this false empowerment. It’s when you overload someone with so many breakthroughs that they leave the session overwhelmed instead of clear.

Your goal is to help with one meaningful thing. Then, if it’s aligned, you invite them into a deeper conversation about working together.

You don’t need to prove anything. You just need to be present, listen, and serve.

Keep It Simple

Until you’ve signed your first five or ten clients, the only system you need is to spark conversations, invite to a complimentary session, serve powerfully, and offer to go deeper.

Everything else can come later. Automation, funnels, courses, ads, all of that is wonderful, but it’s not the starting point. The starting point is connection.

You’ve Got This

If you’ve been stuck thinking you need a bigger audience, better branding, or a clearer niche before you can start, I want you to hear this. You can start right now. You already know enough. You already have people around you who would say yes to a conversation.

You are the strategy. Your heart, your voice, your courage to reach out and offer support, that’s what builds a coaching business.

So take the next step. Spark one conversation today. Just one. That’s how it begins.

Chapter List:

00:00 Introduction to Coaching Success

02:53 Overcoming Overwhelm in Coaching

05:42 The Importance of Conversations

08:05 Building Connections and Getting Clients

10:43 Navigating the Early Stages of Coaching

13:32 Transformational Coaching and Client Relationships

Full Transcript

Amanda Kaufman (00:00)

Your next coaching client is right around the corner.

And hi, my name is Amanda and I help coaches to build a business that they absolutely love. And I really believe that more coaches would be more successful if they watch videos like this. So I'm gonna walk through in this video exactly what I did when I had no website, no social following, no idea how digital marketing worked. I had 500 ideas.

and things that everybody around me told me I should do, not to mention all the books I read, not to mention all of the webinars I attended. I was so confused about what to do and I just opened up my Facebook to post something. And I saw another coach just like, what do do to get clients? I'm new, what do I do? And so this video is answering that question. It's also responding to the couple of people that I talked to at a live event last night.

where it was essentially the same question. It's just this overwhelming 500 things and we need to get out of that overwhelm. So if we haven't met before, hi, my name is Amanda Kaufman and I'm the founder of The Coaches Plaza, which is a brand that I created to help coaches to be successful in coaching other people. And like why? Well, because the number one issue that coaches have is

they don't have a reliable and sustainable or enjoyable way that they are getting clients on a really regular basis. And that means that their impact is diminished. And worse than that, it means that the coach starts to diminish. Like they start to get really, really sad because they have this big dream of how they're gonna do all the things and they were gonna help all the people and then they end up nuts.

And the longer you're not in motion, making traction, gaining progress in your business, the harder it's gonna be to shift all of that. I wanna break this down very, very simply because whenever somebody starts something new, they always think about the someday place. So what do I mean by that? When I was six years old, I wanted to be a figure skater.

But as a six year old, I was like looking at all these Olympic skaters, know, Elvis Stryko and the Michelle Kwan and you know, like just all of these amazing, incredible skaters, Kurt Browning, Scott Hamilton, that were just like absolutely mind blowing in their craft. So when I very first started skating, that was my fantasy. It was like I just, wanted to be one of those incredible skaters.

Now, you know, being sex, I was much more open to the trial and error of the sport. And, you know, I went from skating on a little ice rink, a little kind of yard ice rink to getting formal lessons. And then eventually I became a competitive skater. And it was like my chosen sport while I was growing up. But I think we all do that. Like when we want to become an entrepreneur,

We look at the really successful entrepreneurs, and especially now with these devices, we see what successful could look like, and it's right in our face every single day. And it can feel like there's this huge distance. And when I was six years old, I wasn't thinking about the huge distance. I was just like, amazing, I'm gonna be it, right? When I grow up, I'm gonna be it. But there's something that changes when you're an adult.

And there's this expectation that I think a lot of people have that's not terribly reasonable, which is that you're supposed to be already automatically good at the first thing you try. You know, like if I'm not automatically already good at the first thing I try, well, I guess it's not for me. I guess it's not aligned. And so what I want to talk to you today about is how do you actually get a client as a coach? And the answer is you don't get a client.

You're not Elmer Fudd hunting for the Bugs Bunny. You're not somebody who's going to get or entrap anybody into anything. And I think that that's one of the biggest things that holds a lot of coaches back, is they're worried about being icky, pushy, gross, all of the things. And as you should, you should not be icky, pushy, or gross. However, you do need a strategy. So let's just break this down. The first thing is you need to own

who you are and what your intent is and you've got to literally own and take responsible action towards your dreams.

like I know that sounds so basic, it is so relatively easy to become a coach. You can get the certification, you pay for the certification, you show up to the weekends, you do the homework, da da, you're a coach. And to be completely frank, like you...

need less than that. You just need to say the words, I am a coach. And I'm a big advocate for skill building. I think you should probably go through some kind of a certification and have some sort of a roadmap for how you're going to help people. But really, it's like there's not a huge boundary there. And this on its own really stops a lot of otherwise very competent coaches because they're like, they look left and right and they see all these people that

they judge as being a hot mess. And they go, I don't want to be thought of as a hot mess. So the first thing is you've got to take a lot of responsibility for yourself and how you are not a hot mess. You are somebody who is on a mission. You are somebody who is going to do something awesome. And that is cool, right? Like own it. And if you're having a hard time owning it,

Consider working with a coach. You know the answer. Work with a mentor, work with a coach, join a program, do something where you can borrow the belief until it becomes true for you. So that's the first thing. The second thing is just the whole prerequisite to having lots and lots and lots of clients and even just one is conversations.

Like that's the literal actual answer. you know, know, I too market. There's a lot of marketers out there that are like, the secret is, you you gotta have this very special formula for how you do your videos and you've gotta have this very special tactical structure and all of this fancy technology to be effective. And if we're talking about your next client, like even if you have all that fancy marketing, whoo-haha, like,

it actually really does come down to this one input metric, and that is how many conversations have you started this week? That's it. How many conversations have you opened up? So I call this sparking. So sparking is like somebody's trying to spark me right now. They're sending me a text message, and there's an expectation, there's an expectation that you respond, right? So this person just sent me a text message.

The expectation when they send a message is like, I'm gonna respond in some way. Even if it's just like a little double tap heart. I'm gonna respond in some way. And so the art of opening these conversations is saying something that compels somebody to want to respond. So I did this by practicing on the people that I already knew, that I already liked, that I already trusted.

And after nearly two hours of going through my phone and my Gmail and my LinkedIn when I very first started this business, I had eight names on a Post-It. And my gosh, those fabulous eight. They were the people that I knew I could say with as full force as I can muster, I am starting a coaching business. And those eight people were people that I knew they wouldn't do anything to sabotage my current income.

because I was really worried about that at the time, which is hilarious, but it's another story for a different day. So I really just focused on those eight people and I sparked the conversation by saying like, hey, how are you doing? Because these are people I already knew. I already liked, already trusted, I was already in conversation. So it was a matter of like one email and I would say, hey, how's it going?

You remember how I told you I was doing this coaching certification? Well, as part of that, I need to do 10 complimentary coaching sessions, and I thought of you. So it's that simple. You could do it, like, if you, in my context, it was because I was doing that certification and they had the requirement of the complimentary sessions, but you can change it to just say, like, hey, you know how I've been working on this coaching business for a long time? My coach, Amanda, my coach was,

saying that I would really start making some real traction if I did some complimentary sessions. I don't need you to pay for it, but I would really, really appreciate it if you would sit down with me and allow me the honor of being able to give you the experience that I'm hoping to give others through my business. Would you be open to that? That was literally it. And you know what? 100 % of the eight people that I sent that version of that message to,

And yes, I did completely overthink it. And yes, it did take two and a half hours per email that I sent because I was so freaking nervous. But the moral of the story is it's like, when I sparked that conversation, they did want to reply because we already had a pre-existing relationship. Now, it was like the second person that I was coaching that I learned this little handy trick.

Basically, I did a really great coaching session with this person and they were like, wow, this is incredible. by the way, my friend is going through a job change and it's pretty intense. Would it be cool if I gave him your information? Could I connect you two? Because I feel like this would be really helpful to him. And I was like, I might not know a lot of people, but people know people. And if people are experiencing what I'm doing and they know my mission and they know why I'm doing it, then they're gonna be more surprised.

You know, to be very honest with you, the most momentum that I ever really got in my business was when I was completely unsuccessful. And what I mean by that is like, people want to help the underdog. They want to help the person who is starting out and they're struggling. The more successful I got, the more skeptical people were about my motives. They were more skeptical about whether they should make a referral.

They were more skeptical about whether it was gonna be impactful. I could do a whole nother thing on that, essentially the more successful you get, the more suspicious people are about how you actually did it. But when you have nothing, when you got nothing and you're looking for that very first client, people are going to support you very organically because they wanna see the little guy win. so that's like the biggest.

that I wish every new coach knew is that you are going to receive a lot of encouragement. Now, there's a lot of coaches that I've met in the internet streets and at events and all this kind of stuff where they already kind of tapped that initial potential. They already went to their friends, they already did that, and they don't have the momentum. So where do you get a client in that case? And actually the answer is the same. The answer is the same, right?

The reason why most people don't get the referrals, the people signing up to want to do complimentary sessions is because it feels very needy and very confusing. A lot of confusing language. If you're trying to do a lot of advanced digital marketing strategies all the time,

Then people are gonna see that you've got the hustle and they're gonna see that like you you want to be successful But they're not gonna see that you care about them I'm gonna say that again When you're doing a lot of internet marketing you're posting on social media and I'm not saying don't do this because Visibility and advertising is a really important thing that for you to build a sustainable Coaching business you are going to need to advertise you're going to need to have presence

in your community, whether it's online, offline, all the things. However, we're talking in this video about getting your next client. And the thing is, is that most people ignore most advertising. This is the thing that like I did not know for when I very first started doing digital marketing is that the amount of visibility that you need to have is orders of magnitude, many orders of magnitude more.

than if you have a single connected conversation with a person that you can help right on time. And if the only way that people can get to you is sporadic and not enough volume posting on social media or a website that's not linked to anything and not referenced to anything and there's nothing driving traffic to that website, it's just out there in the ether and getting no traffic at all. If that's the only thing that they see from you,

then the only thing that they're getting is your hustle. And while people respect the hustle, the thing is, it's gonna be your other co-jee friends that respect that hustle. It's not necessarily gonna be the person who wants to buy your coaching. The person who wants to buy your coaching and when digital marketing is done extremely well, they need to feel that you are speaking directly to them. They need to feel that

It's not just you performing and being performative of the hustle and the grind and all the work. They need to know that you personally care about them. So what does that look like? Again, it's spark the conversation. Invite them to freaking coffee, you know? And if you're not close to them, invite them to get a coffee and join you on Zoom. Like.

The core skill here is at the very, very beginning of a coaching business is actually social skills. It's this activating your inner extrovert. And I am like really, really introverted, so this was really hard for me. But it's not impossible to learn the skills. Couple of books that could really, really help with this is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie that is a oldie, betty goodie, right?

Never Eat Alone by Keith Farazzi, I think, is another really good book that talks about the power of connection and relationships. Even Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill talks a lot about your conduct and your relationships, plus a whole bunch of other things as well. But the power in your coaching business is in the connection of the relationships that you're building and your willingness to

spark those conversations and nurture those conversations forward. Now, nurture doesn't mean like endlessly giving, endlessly talking about, you other things that aren't the thing. It's about sparking a conversation in the direction of the transformation that you facilitate. And if somebody isn't vibing, they don't dig that conversation, let them not dig it. Wish them well. Refer them elsewhere. You know, like that's okay.

Your core skill is connection and activating conversations, one-on-one conversations with people that lead to a natural invitation to a consult. Once they experience the consult, the next big hurdle is gonna be to help them with one meaningful thing in that consult and then invite them into a deeper conversation about continuing to work with you.

One of the biggest mistakes when you're first getting your first clients in the door is engaging in a false empowerment. So false empowerment is where you are working so hard to make the other person feel really good in the coaching call, but they don't, and they get the breakthrough, the aha, you're pushing so hard for that aha.

But then you just keep going and you keep adding aha after aha after aha after aha and You're trying to cram the entire coaching relationship into one session because you're trying to prove that you are worthy and good enough and So to avoid that just remember the very first step that I talked about in this video You got to own that you're great. You got to own it. It's false empowerment because when you just

dump a bunch of here's what you could do, here's what you should do, here's your breakthrough, here's your what the what what, you're ignoring the transformation time. Transformation does not come from information overload. Transformation comes from deliberate changes in behavior actually. It's deliberate actions that people take. And sometimes they're like the big one time thing, like getting your first client, the big one time thing.

But why are we getting the first client? So we can also get the next client and the next client and the next client so that we can actually have impact in what we're doing, right? So like, yes, it's this big push to get the first client, but then very quickly, you know, after that, it's like, right, how do I build a system around this? And I am telling you that until you get to your first five or 10 clients, the system is sparking conversations, you know, asking who would be better off knowing me.

that you could introduce me to, asking for those referral invitations and then sparking with those people saying, hey, know, hi, my name is So-and-so and my friend, Blah-B-D-B-Lah, just gave me your contact information and I wanted to take a beat to introduce myself. I know this is coming kind of out of the blue, but you Blah-B-D-B-Lah said that you were really great.

And if you were open to it, I'd love to have a coffee. And again, it just like keeps going like that. So now if you have the ambition to build your business into the multi six figure or even seven figure range, you will need systems. You will need to codify or codify your messaging from when they meet you to when they hire you to when they are alumni. And you're gonna need to build what's called a customer journey.

But when you're very, very, very first starting, let it be scrappy, let it be simple, do what matters. And if you have more questions, let me know in the chat below. Hope you really love this and we'll see you on another episode.